Elop Reorganizes Nokia, Fires The Guy Who Ran Their Android-Killer

On top of today's big-ticket
news that Nokia is
picking Windows as its smartphone platform, the company is also
announcing a big reorganization. As part of the re-org, Alberto
Torres, EVP of MeeGo Computers, Mobile Solutions, is stepping
down to "pursue other interests outside the company."

Torres was the guy in charge of MeeGo, which was supposed to be
Nokia's big platform that would bring it to the level of Apple's
iOS
and Android.
Except MeeGo never shipped, and Nokia's CEO got replaced by a
Microsoft
alum who decided to go with Windows. So Torres was either fired,
or effectively fired, since it's hard to imagine him staying
after the new guy drowned his baby in the bathtub.

MeeGo will be open-sourced, and Nokia will still put out the
MeeGo devices it has in the pipeline, and then support the
open-source community around MeeGo, but that platform is
basically dead now.

The re-org is also interesting: Nokia is going to have just two
business units, Smart Devices and Mobile Phones. We like this, it
means that Nokia clearly wants to focus on what it's good at now
-- cranking out lots of good, cheap "dumbphones" and "feature
phones" and dirtributing them everywhere -- and what it needs to
be good at tomorrow to survive -- cranking out lots of great,
cheap Windows smartphones (and tablets?) and distributing them
everywhere. We'll add that there's still tons and tons of money
to be made with cheaper phones, as hundreds of millions of people
in developing countries are buying them and a billion more will
buy them in the next decade.